Chemical treatments are often prepared, transported and used in dry powder or granular form. Typically, such treatments must be dispersed or dissolved in water or other liquids before being used. Unfortunately, when dry powdered or granular chemicals are dispersed or dissolved, they often do not diffuse completely or uniformly throughout the liquid, and may settle in the mixing container and obstruct the supply and return lines. Particularly, dry detackifier products are often difficult to use in the field as wetting of the product and dispersion in paint spray booths recirculation water is difficult. This can result in undesirable variations in concentration, errors in treatment levels and equipment failure. Moreover, with the dry powdered products, the product is typically dispersed in a dry tank and slug fed or fed as a slurry using expensive metering pumps.
These and the other problems inherent in the use of dry powdered or granular chemicals may be avoided or reduced by forming the dry powdered or granular chemicals into pellets and then immersing the pellets in a liquid to gradually strip away and disperse or dissolve the chemicals. Currently available systems for achieving this end are often large, complex, and expensive and do not produce consistent results.
For example, in one common system, pelletized materials are suspended in a quiescent liquid reservoir to slowly break up and disperse or dissolve the pellets, producing a mixture which may be used as desired. In other currently available systems, referred to as "pot feeders" and "by-pass feeders", one or more jets or currents of water are directed parallel to the vertical axis of the reservoir, to pass directly into and through the pelletized materials. These systems, unfortunately, are not as efficient as desired to completely dissolve and disperse many pelletized materials.